1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printing apparatus with a printing unit that can carry out printing selectively on one of print sheets having different sizes.
2. Description of the Related Art
Printing apparatuses that can carry out printing of a scanned original document selectively on a plurality of print sheets having different sizes have conventionally been used. In such printing apparatuses, the size of the original document is compared with the size of a print sheet on which the image of the original document is to be printed, and the image of the original document is scaled to the size of the print sheet before being printed.
Further, in a printing apparatus proposed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 7 (1995)-327129, an effective image area is detected from a scanned original document, and the detected effective image area is scaled to the size of a print sheet before being printed, in order to provide a uniform layout of duplicated documents.
A method for recognizing such an effective image area is described, for example, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 4(1992)-220776, where an image of a scanned original document is displayed on a display device, and an effective image area in the original document specified by a user with a pointing device is recognized.
On the other hand, in an image scanning device proposed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2000-270196, an original document provided in advance with an area to be read in the form of a frame is scanned, and an image within the area to be read in the scanned original document is recognized as the effective image area.
As shown in FIG. 1, in a case where an original document PI, which is an A3 size sheet, containing image information in a region R of about A4 size is scanned and printed on a print sheet, if the entire image of the original document is printed on an A3 size print sheet at 100% magnification, as the printed document A, the document contains a blank space and this is a waste of paper resources.
In contrast, if the entire image of the original document is reduced to the size of an A4 size print sheet, which is a size smaller than the size of the original document, and printed on an A4 size print sheet, as the printed document B, saving of paper resources can be achieved, however, legibility of the document lowers since the image of the original document is reduced.
In a printing apparatus disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 7-327129, in which only the effective image area of the scanned original document is scaled to the size of a print sheet to be printed, the effective image area is scaled at a magnification that varies depending on the size of the detected effective image area, and this may lower legibility of the printed document.
Further, when a user places an original document on an original document platen of the printing apparatus to carry out printing, the user can determine the size of a print sheet (A4 size in this example) that is smaller than the size of the original document PI and large enough to contain the region R, and position the original document PI on the original document platen such that the region R fits in a scanning area corresponding to A4 size on the original document platen, to print the image information in the region R on the A4 size print sheet. However, this requires the user to carry out a troublesome operation of positioning the original document PI with checking the position of the region R relative to the original document platen. In addition, if the user has positioned the original document PI incorrectly, the printed document may contain incomplete image information, as the printed document C shown in the drawing.